K12 Headlines

6/11/2014

As part of a six-year agreement, Discovery Education and Maryland’s Kent County Public Schools (KCPS) are partnering to create digital learning environments in classrooms districtwide. KCPS' K12 students will have access to Discovery Education’s digital textbooks and curriculum-based content. Discovery also will provide KCPS educators with professional development.

Attending an all-girls high-school or college can keep women on the technology track, a panel of women investors and executives said at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit this week. Being in a same-sex academic environment erased some of the stereotypes and stigmas that prevent girls from pursuing a passion for technology, according to the Women & Tech Next Wave session panelists.

A Norfolk Circuit Court judge has halted implementation of the state’s school takeover division. Since the Virginia constitution vests the authority to establish school divisions in the Board of Education and not the General Assembly, the judge ruled that the legislation creating the Opportunity Educational Institution is not constitutional.

Another round of Iowa school district consolidation is likely in the years ahead due to dwindling rural populations and the expiration of a state provision that allows districts with declining enrollment to recoup some budget losses, state educators say. The consolidation trend is reigniting conversations about how to best serve rural students in a state that's seen significant urban migration in the past decade.

ASCD released two new ASCD Arias professional development titles that address students’ emotional health in the classroom. "Handling Student Frustrations" focuses on how teachers can respond to students’ frustrations to create a productive learning environment. "Encouragement in the Classroom" offers practical classroom-tested strategies, routines and rituals for creating a supportive classroom environment.

IQWST Interactive Digital Edition (IDE) is an interactive middle school science curriculum for tablets and laptops, incorporating audio, video, graphic simulations, and writing and drawing tools into the Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST) curriculum for grades six through eight.

By 2025, the Oregon Education Investment Board's goal is for every student to graduate from high school, 40 percent to earn a post-secondary credential, and 40 percent to graduate from college. These goals are laudable, but meaningless unless we continue to invest funding in what works for Oregon students.

Franklin Township Schools violated the state constitution when it discontinued bus service and arranged for an outside company to shuttle students for a fee, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled. The ruling, if it stands, also would prevent other school corporations from trying the same approach to solve a budget problem.

The slow economic recovery is taking a toll on the nation’s public schools, reversing a multi-decade trend of increased funding and pushing student-teacher ratios to their highest levels since 2000. U.S. schools actually weathered the recession itself relatively well. Once the recession ended, however, so did the stimulus — long before state and local governments were ready to pick up the slack.

Louisiana's public schools were comparatively unsafe places in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to data released by the National Center for Education Statistics. Louisiana had the highest rate of high school students reporting they got into a fight on campus and teachers reporting they had been threatened with injury at school.

In a groundbreaking ruling, a California court struck down the state's teacher tenure, dismissal and seniority laws on grounds that they violate the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. If other state governments don't act, disadvantaged students now have a claim to petition the judiciary to protect their rights as much as in the days of Jim Crow.

Securly, a cloud-based provider of internet security for K12 schools, has launched Student Achievement Analytics to help school leadership use a combination of visual charts and commands to answer questions about aggregate student activity. The new offering shows how students and teachers are really using technology.

A House bill that would allow some schools to opt out of healthier meal standards drew a veto threat from the White House. The GOP spending bill would allow schools to waive the school lunch and breakfast standards for the next school year if they lost money on meal programs over a six-month period.

A few days into summer vacation, dozens of Central Texas principals are trying to figure out how to pay for after-school programs next school year. The 5-year cycle runs out at the end of July for nearly 70 local schools receiving federal grant money for the programs.